Chapter Thirty
THEA
A s they stood before the door to the Laughing Fox, Thea glanced at the Warsword beside her, who looked infinitely moodier than usual, and couldn’t help but smile.
He answered with a scowl that only made her grin harder.
Gods, last night had been… Everything.
She could still feel the imprint of him on her, like a brand on her body, on her soul, and she never wanted it to fade.
‘Having second thoughts?’ Wilder asked, his hand braced on the tavern door.
Thea pictured what they must have looked like to the patrons last night – and then, with a flush, what Torj, Cal and Kipp had seen back at their room. But the flare of embarrassment waned almost as quickly as it had come. She didn’t care what they thought, she realised.
‘Not a chance,’ she replied, giving Wilder a sultry look before pushing past him and entering the bar.
The Laughing Fox was one of those places that looked the same in the light of day as it did in the heart of night, and for that, Thea loved it.
‘— haven’t paid the last fucking tab, Kristopher.’
‘I assure you, Albert, it’s —’
Kipp was arguing with the owner of the tavern, his hands flailing about in front of him.
Thea’s gaze immediately found Cal, who was gaping at their friend, baffled.
Thea guessed he was thinking the same as her: how in the realms had Kipp managed to get back to the Laughing Fox and rack up another bill since the three of them had last been here?
Between the battle with the reapers at Delmira, their close call with death in the flooding caves, the initiation test and their induction into Thezmarr’s Guardian ranks, there had barely been a spare moment to breathe, let alone travel to and from Harenth to drink sour mead and cause havoc.
Kipp did seem to be an overachiever in that department, though. Thea watched on, fascinated.
‘Honestly, Albert, you should be thanking me! Look at all the patrons I’ve just brought you!’ Kipp gestured to Thea and Wilder.
‘You’ve got a pair on you, lad,’ Albert said, barely managing to keep the mixed notes of admiration and amusement from his gruff voice. ‘But Son of the Fox or not, a bill’s a bill, and it has gotta be paid. I won’t be serving you today till you’ve —’
‘Here,’ Thea said, stepping forward and producing the coin of the king from her pocket. ‘Does this cover it, Albert?’
‘You shouldn’t be cleaning up his messes,’ the barkeep replied.
But Kipp had already swept her up in an eager embrace. ‘I knew I liked you for a reason —’ He dropped her at once and raised his hands in surrender beneath Wilder’s towering frame. ‘As a friend only, I assure you, Warsword.’
‘Kipp!’ Thea hissed. Was he determined to piss off every person in the vicinity before mid-meal?
Albert handed the coin back to Thea, shaking his head, incredulous. ‘It covers it.’
‘I’ll pay you back,’ Kipp gushed.
‘No, he fucking won’t,’ Albert cut in gruffly, giving her friend a stern look.
Kipp shrugged happily. ‘I didn’t say with coin , did I, Albert? Thea knows I’ll repay her with kindness and… discretion.’ He wiggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.
‘If that’s how you’re going to be, I’ll leave you to your debt, Kristopher ,’ she said pointedly.
‘You would never,’ Kipp grinned, slinging an arm around her shoulders again. ‘Besides, Albert won’t allow take-backs.’
To Thea’s right, Wilder gave a sigh. ‘Bertie, I have a feeling I’m going to need some ale for this.’
The barman gave him a sympathetic nod. ‘I’ll keep ’em coming.’
‘Much obliged,’ Wilder replied, already stalking off towards the same booth they’d occupied last night.
Thea elbowed Kipp in the ribs and followed. But she stopped in her tracks when she reached the booth, for not only Torj and Cal occupied the benches…
Celadon eyes that mirrored her own stared back at her.
Wren.
Thea baulked. ‘What are you doing here?’ she blurted, almost flinching at the sight of her sister.
Wren looked different. Her face was gaunt; dark smudges shadowed the skin beneath her eyes, and her lips were pale and cracked.
The knot of bronze hair atop her head was half falling out, loose strands of hair curling about her dirt-streaked cheeks and neck, giving her a somewhat unhinged appearance.
She was hunched over a list of calculations, charcoal staining her fingers.
‘I’ve been asking myself the same question for three days,’ Wren said, with an icy look at Torj.
The Bear Slayer gave a shrug. ‘I was just following Audra’s orders.’
‘Since when does a librarian command a Warsword? ’ Wren snapped.
‘Since when does an alchemist complain so much?’ Torj bit back.
‘I had work to do,’ Wren protested. ‘ Important work. That’s the problem with you warriors – you always think your priorities take precedence over everyone else’s.’
‘Like I said, I was just —’
‘Following orders , so you’ve said. Several times.’
By the sound of it, they’d had this argument before, but Thea couldn’t believe it. Wren sounded exactly like her. There was no denying that they were cut from the same cloth, and that little detail made Thea’s chest ache.
Torj leant in close to her sister. ‘Audra seemed to think you were in some kind of danger. I was doing the honourable thing and keeping you safe.’
Thea’s skin prickled at that detail. Had something happened at the fortress? She knew Audra well enough to know she wouldn’t make a claim like that lightly.
But Wren simply scoffed. ‘Oh, spare me. Thezmarr is the safest place in the midrealms. You brought me along to torture me.’
Luckily, Albert saved them all from another round of verbal sparring by sliding a tray of tankards onto the table.
‘Thank the gods,’ Kipp said, reaching for one.
But Wilder slipped into the booth opposite him and pulled the whole tray to his chest. ‘Who said they were for you?’
Thea bit back a laugh as Kipp’s jaw nearly hit the table.
Wilder didn’t break eye contact as he downed an entire tankard and placed the empty vessel before her friend. ‘Are we going to bicker all afternoon, or is someone going to tell us why the fuck you’re all here ruining my day?’
Had it not been for Wren’s presence jarring the whole experience, Thea would have laughed.
Torj opened his mouth to comment, but Wilder silenced him with a glare. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
Thea slid into the booth beside Wilder and waited, noting how Cal and Kipp exchanged glances at the sight of her at the Warsword’s side.
‘Well?’ Wilder demanded.
Torj claimed one of the tankards and took a long draught before setting it down on the table.
‘Artos sent word to Thezmarr about the threat. Osiris ordered me to answer the call. We had already left by the time we heard you’d arrived.
Figured we’d continue on anyway, see it for ourselves. Assist you, if need be.’
‘It’s been taken care of,’ Wilder said.
‘That’s what I hear,’ Torj replied evenly. ‘What was the threat?’
‘Half-wraiths,’ Thea answered. ‘And they’re not the first we’ve seen.’
Cal and Kipp were fidgeting, a telltale sign that they were bursting with questions about what she’d seen and done during her travels with the Warsword. But in the presence of their own Warsword, they kept their mouths shut.
Torj traced lines through the condensation on his tankard. ‘Is that so?’ He didn’t keep the note of surprise from his voice. ‘Where?’
Thea looked to Wilder for confirmation that she could divulge the information. She knew Torj was as close to a friend as the Warsword had, but she was still learning the intricacies of the politics between the elite warriors. He gave her a subtle nod.
‘We found one caught in a vine blight on the outskirts of Thezmarr,’ she told Torj. ‘And we came upon a half-wraith corpse on the way to Delmira.’
‘Half-wraiths…’ the warrior murmured, shaking his head. ‘I’ve never seen one myself. But Osiris said that’s what this tyrant is building her army with…’
‘Apparently so,’ Wilder agreed.
‘Then the ones you’ve found… What are they? Spies?’
Wilder nodded. ‘That’s what we’re thinking. King Artos had captured two of them when we arrived in Harenth. One was a half-wraith; the other… It was too far gone on the wraith side. Both infected by a reaper.’
‘You interrogated them?’ Torj asked.
‘I did. Servants of evil, the both of them. Courtesy of someone calling themself the Shadow Prince, and then his master, the supposed Daughter of Darkness.’
Torj got to his feet. ‘I want to see these creatures for myself.’
But Wilder shook his head. ‘They’ve been dealt with.’
‘They’re dead?’ Torj asked, lowering himself back into his seat, rattling the whole table.
‘They are now.’
‘But the king —’
‘The king wanted my expertise. He got it,’ Wilder replied bluntly.
Torj considered Wilder curiously. ‘What were you doing in Delmira?’
Thea’s gaze slipped to Wren, recalling how, upon entering their supposed homeland, she’d wished her sister had been there with her to see the ruins, the heather growing amid the rubble and the bell tower at the heart of it all.
Thea met Torj’s questioning stare. ‘Hunting monsters,’ she told him. ‘We dealt with another vine blight, a shadow wraith and a reaper amid the ruins.’
Torj drained his tankard and reached for another, despite Wilder’s incredulous stare. ‘Fair enough.’ He addressed Wilder next. ‘What’s the plan now, then? Back to Thezmarr?’
Thea tensed. She hadn’t considered what came next. She wasn’t nearly close to mastering her magic, and as much as her warrior reputation suddenly preceded her, she knew she wasn’t ready for the Great Rite either.
Torj and Wilder fell into a steady conversation, their voices low, and Thea’s attention was drawn back to her sister.
Wren watched her warily. ‘I don’t know how you stand it,’ she muttered, looking completely miserable.
‘Stand what?’ Thea asked, frowning.
‘Living and travelling with a bunch of rowdy men.’
Torj stopped mid-sentence. ‘You don’t like men, Elwren?’
To Thea’s surprise, her sister sized him up. ‘None that I’ve met, Warsword.’